Monday, August 22, 2016

Creating work life balance

In almost every industry, but especially in the software industry, there's always enough to do that you could work 24/7. But that's not healthy for you or for your company. Not having a healthy work/life balance contributes to burn out, discontent with your employer/boss/team, and often general depression. Obtaining work/life balance is not like capturing a unicorn. It's not a myth. It just looks different depending on what your priorities are.

Different phases in life require different types of work/life balance in order to obtain satisfaction in life, achieve your career goals and prevent you from burn out. For example, when you're single and kid free a lot of your satisfaction in life comes from your day job. You'll want to invest longer hours because you'll be rewarded in both your life satisfaction and in your career growth. Contrast that with someone who is married and has kids. More of their life satisfaction will come from outside of work than from inside. They'll be trying to do a good job with their spouse, their kids, and their jobs.

Here are some tips that have helped me achieve a good work/life balance.

1. Set The Correct Expectations With Your Management Chain and Your Peers

You want your boss and your team to know they can count on you. But that doesn't mean that you have to be available 24/7. Have a conversation with your boss and let them know explicitly what to expect your in office and out of office hours to be. Understand that this is a two-way conversation and your understanding may be incorrect. Having this conversation will make sure that both you and your boss are on the same page.

For example: my son goes to sleep around 7 pm each night during the school year because he has to get up at 5 am. It's important for me to get an hour with him at night before he goes to bed since I don't see him in the morning. So, I sat down with my boss let him know that my goal was to try to leave the office each day between 5 pm and 5:30 pm each day because it takes me 30-40 minutes to commute home. We talked through this expectation and my plan to be in by 8 am each day. I also let him know that I am flexible and can occasionally stay later if the need arises, but that I it has to be the exception to the rule.

Knowing my goal helps me coordinate better with my boss. He knows that if something comes up after 5 pm that I will likely address it the next morning. He also knows that if something exceptional comes up that is important that he can count on me to address it.

2. Be Willing To Jump In As The Exception To The Rule

Most high tech companies have core business hours but the internet doesn't stop because it's 5 pm. Working in an industry which doesn't have an open and a close means you'll need to be flexible in your schedule and occasionally work before or after your normal day begins or ends. If you're working on a project with a tight deadline you're going to need to be flexible and willing to put in additional hours in order to maintain a good work/life balance as the standard rule.

3. Understand The Trade Offs and Be Willing To Accept Them

Different industries require a different level of commitment. For example, retail organizations are likely going to require you to work on or around the holidays. Why? Because that's when some of their core business during the year takes place. It's not reasonable to take a job in retail and expect to take Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Christmas week off.

That's just one example. Each industry will have different trade-offs. Some will require travel. Some will require work on the weekends. Some will require long hours for a couple weeks out of the year during planning periods or before big products ship.

If you understand the trade-offs of your industry then it won't feel like your work is constantly encroaching on your work/life balance. It'll be a conscious choice you've made where you've deemed the rewards to be greater than the demand. You and your employer will have the same understanding of where the balance between work and life is and what reasonable and unreasonable expectations are.

4. Remove Work Email From Your Phone

This one has helped me significantly. At first I didn't have a choice as my work stopped allowing Android phones to connect to our email servers due to the Stage Fright vulnerability. The first few months I went through withdrawal and was afraid that I was going to drop the ball on something. But as I learned to set expectations with my boss and my peers I slowly started feeling more comfortable being disconnected.

In my case, I've explained to my management chain that I don't have access to email on my phone and didn't plan on VPN'ing in to check it while at home. But I also told them explicitly that if something came up to please feel free to text me. This gives them confidence that I'm not going to just fall off the face of the planet when I leave the office and it helps me to feel okay not being connected 24/7 to my job.5. Exceed Expectations When You Are At Work

If you exceed expectations while you're at work then you'll build the trust that you need for your boss and peers to understand you will get the job done. Your boss and your peers will believe they can count on you to get the job done and won't feel like they need to micro-manage how or when you do the job.

Exceeding expectations assumes that you know what the expectations of you are. You *must* sit down with your management chain and have this conversation. You *should* have goals that are clearly defined. You *should* also talk to them about how to escalate to you on off hours. For example, if there's an expectation that sending you an email is enough to engage you after hours but you don't check your email after hours, then you're not going to be able to exceed expectations.

About Me

I’ve been in the technology industry for 14+ years mostly as a Software Developer. I've worked on projects ranging from a Ruby on Rails Portal, a high performance/low latency .NET search stack, R&D for building infrastructure in the cloud including automated server builds using Chef, to architecting and building iOS and Android Mobile platforms and frameworks.I've also spent some time building Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and Bada mobile applications that focused on the presentation of long form audio/video.The middle of my career was spent at MSNBC working on their content management publishing platform, their video syndication system, as well as being a co-creator of their iOS iPad framework from which the Rachel Maddow, Today Show, and Nightly News iPad apps were built.Finally, the beginning of my career was spent writing software on government contracts with a few years spent writing criminal investigation software.